


Ever So Slightly Unhinged

by sequence_fairy



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Post-Doomsday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s walked this line before, the razor’s edge between madness and brilliance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ever So Slightly Unhinged

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Doomsday, pretend Donna never showed up. My take on the Doctor pushed ever so slightly over the edge.

He’s left behind like always, just the madman with a blue box and destruction trailing in his wake. He’s lost Rose to a parallel dimension where she’ll never be safer and the irony does little more than make him seethe with barely contained rage at the cosmic unfairness of the whole situation. He’d promised to keep her safe, and keep her safe he has, even if it means never being able to see her again, because he knows, life with him, travelling the universe, is not safe. Not even the least bit safe, but what he wouldn’t give to feel his hearts jump with adrenaline and feel her hand in his as they race back to the TARDIS one last time.

He’s tried to find a way to get back to her, because Rassilon knows he’s loved before, but Rose, _Rose_. She’s like lightning that lanced through all the dark and broken places in his soul and cauterized the wounds before soothing them with the balm of her love. She wormed her way through the brittle exterior and into his hearts and now that she’s gone, sometimes he can’t even breathe with the shock of her absence.

After that last glimpse of her on that godforsaken spit of sand in Norway, he’d briefly considered trying to time a set of supernovae to give him the boost he’d need to cross the Void and get back to her, and had even started running the calculations through the TARDIS mainframe, before realizing that she’d never want him to shatter either of their universes for her sake. He’d clung to the console like a child that night, the grief raw and ripping through the carefully constructed barriers he’s always putting between himself and his emotions.

He’s learned quickly to feed the rage in order to starve the despair that he can’t shake, because at least the rage is productive. He’s reconfigured a list of the TARDIS’ systems as long as his arm, trying to distract himself from the raw emptiness of his existence, rattling around the universe by himself. He’s not sleeping, will not let himself sleep, the dreams are too much and gasping awake with her name on his lips leaves him wanting to find a war to throw himself in front of and he hasn’t eaten more than a banana in who knows how long, but the core of white hot steel he’s been holding on to at his center is in no danger of growing cold anytime soon.

Three days ago, the TARDIS had decided she’d had enough of him and had dragged him into a confrontation with some smugglers. It was enough that they were kidnapping people to work in the mining colonies on a distant asteroid, but when the Doctor dug a little deeper and discovered that they were also trafficking children, the rage had blotted out even the smallest shred of compassion that hadn’t died when he’d closed off everything but the anger that kept him from collapsing.

The Doctor is intimately familiar with exactly how far he’ll go to eliminate a threat; he’s not called the Destroyer of Worlds for nothing. He hadn’t flinched as the smugglers’ ship exploded in a mushroom cloud of flame, backlighting the Oncoming Storm as he’d stalked back to the TARDIS, the coat billowing behind him and the hint of something feral in the upturned corners of his mouth. Even the people he’d rescued were wary of him afterwards, as he dropped them on their home planet.

It wasn’t until later when he’d finally caught a glimpse of himself in the monitor on the console that he saw the streaks of soot on his face and noticed the wildness in his eyes. He’s walked this line before, the razor’s edge between madness and brilliance, but never has he felt so close to choosing to let the madness win. It would be so easy to let go of the already tenuous hold he has on his own sanity and give up the rest of it. There’s reason he shouldn’t travel alone, the weight of it all just drags a person to shreds. The Doctor snarls and tosses the spanner he’d been holding across the console room, feeling a moment’s satisfaction at the bright clang it makes when it hits the grated floor.

He slams a fist down on the console, hissing in a breath at the explosion of pain and the harsh fizz of reproach from the TARDIS. He gingerly examines his hand and is dismayed to find that he’s broken a finger. Christ, just what he needs. The pain breaks the rage back into the melancholy he’s been fighting unsuccessfully for the weeks since he lost her at Canary Wharf. He grits his teeth as he sets his finger, using the sonic screwdriver to set the bone to knitting, and cannibalizing bits and bobs from the scattered parts at his feet to make a splint.

Once done, he sinks back into the jump seat; shoulders slumped forward and head in his hands. She’s gone. Oh Gods, gone and gone and he’ll never have her hand to pull him back from the edge, and never see her smile when he shows her something marvelous, never get a chance to feel what it’s like to really kiss Rose Tyler, and to watch her fall apart underneath him and never see her soft and unguarded in quiet sleep. He hisses in a breath, squares his jaw and looks up at the coral struts. She’s safe. Rose is safe. He can handle this, can grit his teeth and hold on to his sanity with his fingertips, because she’s safe. The Doctor breathes out, and reaches out to set the TARDIS on a course to a quiet corner of universe where he can park her and wait until he can see Rose again, because she’ll be waiting for him at the end, he knows it.


End file.
